I have always wondered why I get most of my creative ideas when I am alone in the bathroom, washing dishes, or gardening. It was only recently that the penny dropped and it clicked – I am alone without distractions. I am not on my phone, watching TV, or listening to music.
I am alone with my thoughts, as the activity does not require active focus. The famous Archimedes “eureka” (I have found it) moment happened in the bathroom.
As I read more on the subject, it all makes sense. We have the conscious and subconscious mind. With the conscious mind, we make goals, create tasks, and seek solutions. Oftentimes, the solution does not come when we are consciously thinking or during our working hours. While we move on to other things, our subconscious mind is still at work, analyzing and seeking solutions.
The challenge is – it needs time to do its work. It needs bandwidth to process the data. If you have too many apps open on your phone (or tabs on your laptop), at some point, it ties up available memory resources leading to the degradation of speed or ‘hanging’ of some processes (they stop working).
To get unstuck, you need to close some apps/tabs and restart the phone/laptop to free up memory.
In the same way, it seems our subconscious needs mental bandwidth to work well; at times we do nothing and free our mind to do its work.
Here lies the problem. We dread doing nothing. We get bored to tears. Many would freak out if they left home without their mobile phone. Solitary confinement seems like the death sentence. Our prayer becomes a monologue – we pour out our hearts to God and rush out before He responds. We don’t know how to quiet our minds in meditation, solitude, spending time alone with nature, or having times we free our minds to roam freely away from the din of everyday life and sound, and the ever-present social media.
Even when we work, we multitask. We have so many tabs and windows open. We ask our minds a question but do not wait for the answer. Rather than cultivating boredom, we kill it like a mosquito or cockroach. I wince each time I realize how many friends I kill in my garden thinking they are annoying enemies, not knowing they are friends and allies that aid soil fertility, pollination, etc.
I have come to realize that I have been treating boredom like a bug. In contrast, boredom is a friend and loyal ally, helping us to unpack, rearrange, connect, and surface solutions we would otherwise have been going around in circles looking for a solution.
One of the culprits is the mobile phone, a weapon of mass distraction. I have rediscovered the alarm clock and torchlight, one of the many functions the mobile phone has usurped, making us hooked to it like a life support machine. With the decentralization of some functions, I can afford to say good night to my phone in the sitting room as I go to bed.
I am making peace with boredom and allowing my mind to roam free as it once did as I grew up in the countryside. As a child, I had an active imagination and daydreamed of traveling to distant lands to do wonderful things. Then life happened and reality killed those dreams. With boredom, they are making a comeback, even better, as my spirit becomes open to connect with my maker. When I tune out the noise, I start to hear His voice in my heart.
In a world gone crazy, such oases of peace are priceless. Now, I seek boredom.
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